


the further i go (the more i'm guessing)

by waveridden



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Gen, Other, Season: Twilight Mirage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21706879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveridden/pseuds/waveridden
Summary: Ballad doesn’t think that Advent is responsible for the zombie apocalypse. That seems too much, too harsh, too genuinely unbelievable for him. Or maybe he’s just naive; who can say? (A zombie AU.)
Relationships: Ballad Reverie & Echo Reverie, Grand Magnificent/Echo Reverie
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19
Collections: 2019 AU December Challenge





	the further i go (the more i'm guessing)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of the AUcember series, a self-made challenge where I try to write a new AU one-shot every day. You can read all of the AUcember fics in the collection linked above. Title is from The Good Part by Liz Lawrence.
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS: no zombies actually appear in this zombie AU, but expect discussion of/jokes about death, gun violence, cannibalism, and medical experimentation.

Ballad has never been afraid of small spaces. He’s never had a reason to be. Sure, sometimes things are dark and cramped, but it’s not like he’s stuck forever. He and Echo and Legato, they’d always made a game out of finding the best hiding places for hide and seek. Echo and Legato were both climbers, little acrobats getting to the highest point in the room, but Ballad had been good at folding himself up small and waiting in corners.

No, he’s never minded small spaces, or the dark. But this-

“I might have extra batteries in my pocket,” Grand says thoughtfully. “One of them. It depends on if I’m wearing the right pants today.”

This is a special kind of torture.

“I don’t think batteries are going to make or break this situation,” Ballad says, voice tight. “We need to find a way out-”

It’s too dark to see him clearly, but Ballad can feel the motion in the air as Grand waves a hand dismissively at him. “Batteries are for a flashlight,” he says. “And, if you already have a working flashlight, batteries are for when that working flashlight stops.”

Ballad bites back a sigh. “All things considered, do you think it’s a good idea to have a flashlight?”

“What, you mean the zombie thing?”

“What else could I possibly mean?”

“You could just mean that you don’t want to see where we are.” There’s a loud rustling noise, probably because Grand is looking through his many, many pockets. “I mean, I don’t particularly want to, but we don’t have a lot of alternatives.”

Ballad drags a hand down his face. Advent had sent them somewhere to scope out a facility for supplies. This one, they swore up and down, didn’t have any actual people living in it that they were stealing from. And they’d been right: the only people in the urgent care clinic had been bodies. Not zombies, just bodies.

And it was a normal supply mission. Terse and quiet because Ballad kind of hates Grand, sure, but it had been easy. Until Grand fucking Magnificent had said “Hey, I found a tunnel under this mini-hospital,” and Ballad had been stupid enough to follow him, and then they’d knocked something loose and buried themselves inside.

Grand is handling the whole thing well, which almost makes Ballad more nervous. Grand seems like the kind of person who would spontaneously decide that his best chance at survival is eating Ballad, and he also seems like he’d make that decision without communicating it at all beforehand.

“We don’t know where this tunnel goes,” Ballad points out, but he starts patting down his pockets just to see what he has. It’s not much: one gun, one clip to reload, a couple of ration bars, a water bottle attached to his belt. He had more in his backpack - his backpack, which is currently sitting on the floor of the clinic above them. He wants to kick himself for leaving it up there, but there’s not much point in that now.

Grand scoffs. “What’s our other option here, exactly? Just sitting in this dead end and waiting?” There are a couple of clicks, and Grand mutters something to himself that Ballad doesn’t quite catch, and then suddenly there’s light again. Ballad blinks against the brightness, letting his eyes adjust until he can focus on Grand, who unfortunately looks pretty pleased with himself. “You ready to get moving?”

Ballad glances around the tunnel entry. There’s nothing here worth grabbing, and there’s only one way forward.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “Let’s get this over with.”

#

Ballad doesn’t think that Advent is responsible for the zombie apocalypse. That seems too much, too harsh, too genuinely unbelievable for him. Or maybe he’s just naive; who can say?

The Advent Discovery Medical Group existed to research the human immune system. A lot of people think that their research is what led to zombies: a supervirus, something that keeps people alive, something that helps them repair themselves.

On his bad days, Ballad lets himself believe that that’s a piece of the puzzle. Not the whole thing, of course - there’s all that shit with New Earth and those exploration missions and what the hell ever else, it would be impossible to pin everything on one group. On his bad days, Ballad thinks that Advent was full of hubris, that they were too nearsighted to see that they were pushing towards the end of the world.

But most days he wants to believe that he’s doing the right thing, working with them. He’s trying to keep people safe, to help them figure out how immunity works, to help them figure out if there’s a way to reverse the zombie virus. He’s trying to do something to change the world they’re living in.

It’s enough. He needs it to be enough, right now.

#

“What do you think an urgent care clinic needs tunnels for anyways?” Grand wonders as they move through the tunnel.

It’s not a bad question. The tunnel is simple, not a bunker or a hideout, just a straight line moving forward. And it’s clearly old, not something that people made in the clinic to escape zombies.

“Prohibition era,” Ballad guesses. “Or maybe it’s from a bank or something.”

Grand hums thoughtfully. “You think we get GPS down here?”

“We don’t even get GPS when we’re aboveground.”

“ _ You _ don’t get GPS,” Grand says, which is concerning to say the least. Grand isn’t allied with Advent so much as he is staying with Advent until he finds a better offer. Part of Ballad’s job has been making sure that Grand doesn’t get a better offer, because the man’s kind of a genius when it comes to zombie defense systems. But that doesn’t mean that Ballad trusts him. Especially not if he has tech that he’s not sharing.

Ballad takes a deep breath. He has to get both of them out of this in one piece, if he can. “So do you have any guess for where we’re going?”

“We’ve been walking for a long time,” Grand points out. “Like, six miles-”

“It’s been less than two miles.”

“And there’s still no exit point.”

“You think there’s a dead end?”

“No, that would be ridiculous.” Grand pauses. “Wouldn’t it?”

“I’m not worried about a dead end,” Ballad says. “I’m worried about a real end surrounded by zombies.

Grand makes a noncommittal noise. “If we’re surrounded by zombies, you’ll just shoot me. I’m not worried about that.”

Ballad stops dead for a second. “That doesn’t bother you?”

“Hm?” Grand pauses, a couple of steps in front of Ballad, and turns to give him a perplexed look. “Why would it bother me? I don’t get to be a genius if I’m a zombie. I’d rather be dead than stupid.”

“Jesus,” Ballad mutters. It’s the most Grand Magnificent answer he ever could’ve expected. “I’d rather be alive than dead.”

“Well, of course,” Grand scoffs. “I’m just saying, if it comes down to it, I’m not worried.”

“That makes me worry more.”

Grand rolls his eyes and starts walking again. “There won’t be zombies,” he says. “We’ll be fine.”

Ballad wishes that he were stupid enough to have that kind of confidence. He really, really does.

#

The tunnel ends up being over four miles long, by Ballad’s guess. Grand is clearly exhausted, dragging his feet and consistently a few paces behind Ballad. It’s not the longest walk Ballad’s ever had, but it’s the longest walk he’s ever had in a mysterious tunnel with a man he doesn’t like much, so it feels like the longest.

“Please tell me that’s not a dead end,” Grand groans. “Please, god, I don’t want to be trapped in an empty tunnel.”

“I think there’s a trap door.” Ballad, who has long since commandeered Grand’s flashlight, swings the beam towards the ceiling. “Like the one that you found.”

Grand lets out a long groan. “Climbing?”

“Do you want to get out of here or not?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to  _ climb. _ ”

Ballad rolls his eyes. “Okay, great, well, get ready to climb anyways.”

“Ugh,” Grand mutters, but he approaches the trap door. It’s latched together in a way that Ballad can’t quite understand, with a couple of chains and pins in place. He’s about to suggest shooting the lock when Grand tilts his head, reaches up, and slides the chains around. They fall loose, swinging from the trap door.

Of fucking course. This would really be so much easier if Grand weren’t actually smart sometimes.

Ballad pulls out his pistol and flips the safety off. “Ready?”

Grand nods and wraps his hand around the handle of the trap door. Ballad lifts a hand with three fingers and counts down to two, then one, and Grand yanks the door open.

“It’s about time,” a voice says, and Ballad is so surprised that he nearly fires. There’s a woman standing in the trap door, tall and blonde and familiar. She’s looking down at Grand, irritation clear on her face “We got your SOS hours ago-”

“Great,” Grand mutters. “It’s the politics police.”

The woman’s eyes flash. “You think you’re still enough a part of the group to get to use a panic button?”

“You think there’s a group to be a part of?” Grand fires back. “I know you all went your separate ways, you don’t get to act like the band’s still together.”

“We don’t have time for this,” she snaps. “You’re lucky I was in a library, so I could figure out what the fuck ‘stuck in clinic tunnels, peace out’ meant.”

“We would’ve been fine without you, Signet.”

Signet steps aside and gestures for Grand to climb out. He does, after a lot of grunting and unnecessary wiggling. Ballad climbs out after him and looks at her. “We’ve met.”

“We have,” Signet says. “It’s been a long time.”

“Thank you for coming.”

“Don’t thank her,” Grand says, from where he’s lying on the ground, limbs splayed out dramatically. “It’s just going to go to her head.”

Signet draws herself up to her full height, clearly bristling. “You’ve got a lot of nerve saying anything about other people’s ego-”

“Oh, ego this, ego that, at least I’m trying to make a difference-”

“A difference with Advent?”

“Have you noticed fewer people going missing lately?”

That gives Signet pause, and she gives Ballad an uncertain look. “Do you know what he means?”

Ballad opens his mouth to say no, he doesn’t, but then he actually thinks about it. Advent had been pulling in survivors with promises of safety, but there never seemed to be any new people in the compounds. And he’s tired of lying himself about what he thinks searching for zombie immunity means. There are experiments. That has to be what it is.

“Grand,” Ballad says quietly. “What have you been doing?”

“Advent has computers, a lot of them, that they use for surveillance and tracking medical data. And I’m good with computers.” Grand sits up and picks a point between Ballad and Signet to stare at. “So they haven’t been able to find people lately. A lot of those cameras, especially the long range ones, they’re old. They don’t hold up great under constant use.”

“You’ve been sabotaging them,” Signet says softly.

Grand sighs, shoulders slumping. “I’ve done a lot of things wrong,” he says quietly, and suddenly Ballad can’t breathe. “I know that. And I know this doesn’t fix all the people who get hurt when I do things wrong. But I’m going to stop more people from getting hurt.”

Ballad takes a slow breath through his nose. It’s easy to avoid thinking about Advent as hurting people, but that’s what they do, isn’t it? And Grand realized that. Grand tried to stop it.

Signet gives Grand a considering, measured look. “You owe a lot of apologies to a lot of people.”

“I know.”

“So we’d better go find those people so you can get started.”

Grand stares up at Signet, clearly confused. She reaches out a hand to him. “Get up, Magnificent. You’ve got work to do.”

He nods, slowly, and lets her help him to his feet. “So, uh, are any of those people-”

The door bangs open. Ballad takes a minute to look around - it looks like they’re in an empty convenience store of all places, shelves knocked to the ground and picked through a hundred times over - as he lifts his gun to point at the door. Grand shifts into a fighting stance, of all things. Only Signet looks unbothered.

And it’s then that Ballad remembers when he met Signet: when Echo and their friends first visited the volunteers, months and months ago.

Echo lowers their gun, eyes wide. Ballad can see tears welling up. “Holy shit,” they say, voice wavering. “Oh my god.”

Grand lurches forward a step, eyes locked on Echo. “Hi,” he says, voice softer than Ballad’s ever heard it. He knew that Grand and Echo were close, but it’s something else entirely seeing them in a room together. He can hear Echo’s breath hitch all the way across the store.

Echo swallows loudly. “Grand-”

“I know you have every reason in the world not to want to see me,” Grand says. It sounds rehearsed, like he’s gone over these words before. “But, uh-” he pauses, and his eyes flick over to Ballad. “No, you know what? You can decide if you want to see me later. I brought your brother back, that can be first on your list right now.”

Echo’s eyes slide over to Ballad, and their face crumples in an instant. Ballad’s moving before he even has a chance to think about it, and he collides with Echo in the middle of the store, wrapping his arms tight around them. He can feel tears in his eyes, sliding down his cheeks before he even realizes he’s about to cry.

“Don’t go,” Echo says into his chest. “Don’t go, don’t leave-”

“I won’t,” Ballad says, and he can feel sobs building up in his chest, desperate and messy and heartbroken and joyful. “I won’t, Echo, I’m here. We’re here.”

Echo clutches him tighter, and for a moment Ballad lets himself believe that everything is going to be okay.

And just like that, he realizes, everything is.

**Author's Note:**

> If you also love and miss the Reverie siblings you can come say hi to me on Tumblr and Twitter @waveridden!


End file.
